


One of These Nights

by peigitrahearn



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-25 14:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14380227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peigitrahearn/pseuds/peigitrahearn
Summary: In which Baekhyun runs away from home and realizes what a strange place the world becomes at night as he meets eight other people.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter song(s):
> 
> Talking To The Moon - KREAM

Train tracks were vibrating beneath my feet. The lamps attached to the ceiling of the train were glowing faintly enough to prevent you from seeing the faces of other passengers clearly, yet bright enough to hurt your brain and your eyes during the night ride. My eyes were fixated on a random spot outside although I couldn't even see where we were passing through, only the barely visible silhouettes of trees and road signs every now and then. Everything was being swallowed by an endless hole under the night sky. 

It was almost empty on the train; a couple of people sleeping with their heads tossed back, clutched in their hand, resting against the window; a woman slowly turning the pages of a book like she’s too sleepy to actually understand any of the words, a little kid sitting next to her mother, watching the trees. And me, my eyes looking right ahead, not seeing anything, my mind occupied with everything and nothing at the same time. I wondered their reasons to be on a train in the middle of the night, all of those people, there was an unspoken melancholy hanging in the air, a certain type of stillness brushing against the hair strands of the people sleeping, some kind of despondency resting in hollow and tired eyes. Maybe when you didn't have that kind of mourning for everything yet nothing in particular inside of you, you didn't use night trains. 

 

The little girl watching the trees passing by had put her head on her mother’s shoulder, closing her eyes. I watched as she drifted off to sleep, her eyelids gently fluttering as she wriggled against her mother. I could feel the warmth emitting from the two as everything fell into silence except for the soft breathing of the sleepers. I wondered what it must feel like, to be a part of that warmth.

 

I felt like there was a certain kind of spell cast on the train, on the seats embroidered with generic patterns, on the windows stained with fingerprints, on the trolley filled with single use snacks, a spell that made everything seem less real. Like every single passenger on the train was dreaming and this only lasted for a single night, only until you woke up. But there was something creepy which the feeling of being unreal brought with it. I felt like I was floating because even the gravity wasn't real, and I felt the fear of a little, lost child inside my heart. I didn't know if I was scared of hitting my head against the ceiling or just floating out of the train, into nothingness. And every other person seemed like they had something to keep them tied to the ground, to work as an anchor. And I didn't have that. And that fact made this a dream for everyone, and a nightmare for me. 

 

I didn’t know what I wanted to find in the dark of the night. What I expected from these faint silhouettes outside, from the silent hum of the sleepers, from the subtle groan of the train. They did give me a certain kind of peace though. It felt like time had stopped inside of the train, that the wheels were turning and turning and leading us into the depths of nothingness. As the train moved forward into the night the view didn't change even for once, which only supported my instinct that we were headed into constant stillness. The people who closed their eyes for a mere nap wouldn't open them again, the dim train lights would flicker and flicker and keep flickering yet never go out, and the trees would keep painting their pictures on the train windows without ever getting sick of it.

 

But I wasn’t living in some kind of delusion. I wouldn't need to get on this train if I was. I knew that like there was the last station for anything, there would the last station for this train. And everybody would open their sleepy eyes, rubbing them with the palm of their hands until they can look into darkness without blinking fifty times a second. And they would hold the hands of their companions, or the handles of their luggage as they stepped outside into the cold night air. And their feet would know their way around. And even if their body was sore from sitting all the way, even if their eyes were tired and couldn't define everything really well, even if their only desire was to get away from the cold; they would be so sure where to head to. 

 

And I had no idea. 

 

I looked at my reflection in the window. It all seemed to unfamiliar like it was the first time of me seeing it. Only the additions to it felt like they belonged to me, like the dark bangs placed under my eyes or my sunken cheeks. There were times which I saw my reflection in the mirror and felt like I was trapped in the body of a complete stranger, trapped in the  _ life _ of a complete stranger. These carpets I stepped on didn't belong to me, these walls I touched didn't belong to me. The skin covering my bones wasn't mine, neither was the hair on my head or the clothes adhered to my body. This face wasn't mine with its highlighted cheeks and eyes decorated with fake sparkles, this wasn't me. Yet I didn't know what “me” was. I walked away from the mirror in complete apathy sometimes because it felt like I had gotten used to living undercover, not knowing who I was disguised as. 

There were times which I saw my reflection in the mirror and felt tears rushing to my cheeks because rather than a reflection of my flesh and bones, it was the carved memory of everything I didn't want to remember. Of everything I wanted to burn to ashes. I looked into the mirror and had the irresistible urge to break it to its shreds in me. I had this unbearable repelling inside of me that jabbed and prodded at my stomach and encouraged it to let everything in it out. Just the mere sight of my face made me want to puke: how my mother’s eyes were located right in the middle with the dead look stuck in them, small and dark. My father’s nose followed right after; long and shapely, and then his mouth right at the bottom. Thin lips, almost never opening the slightest. How these features that hated one another so much melted in together, how I represented the red area between them, how I was born from two people, had the genes of two people, was made of two people that didn’t have the slightest affection for the other made me feel like I was there to remind them of a mistake. Like I was the mistake. A brunette like my mother yet small ears like my father. I was a mix of something unknown, something born from the dark emptiness without a hint of anything intimate. And looking into the mirror just reminded me how much each of these features was repelled from one another and I wanted to cut them loose so that they could be free, and then I could be free.

There were times which I saw my reflection in the mirror and just wanted to tear my face apart. Because these eyes would hold no gazes, these lips would hold no sonnets, this face would hold no meaning. Because this face had been erased from the moment it had opened its eyes to the blinding fluorescent of the delivery room and it had only been drifting here and there since. My feet were on the ground and my weight was pulling me right to the core but still with my entire being, I was somewhere else. I didn't know where I just knew it wasn't that place.

 

And as I stared at my reflection in the train window, melting into the darkness behind, I only felt the tenderness of the night. I had the strangest feeling that now, my eyes and lips didn't hate one another so much. The strangest feeling that my body was where my soul was. 

I had the strangest fear that now, my feet were off the ground too. 


	2. The Case of Kim Jongin (Pt. 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of suicide, personal loss
> 
> Chapter song(s): 
> 
> I'M YOUNG - WINNER (Taehyun solo)  
> Holding Rivers - Oh Hiroshima

I looked out of the window as my thoughts scattered.  It was starting to be illuminated with the artificial lights which we seemed to approach. The train stopped its hum with a sharp movement and the doors swept open. 

 

I didn’t think anyone would come in, the air filling in the train from outside was freezing and the sky was pitch black. I stared at the billboard, reading the slogan, watching as the light of two street lamps next to it quivered. Until I felt a pressure next to me and separated my eyes from the billboard to take a look.

 

A young man, looking around 20, had seated himself next to me. He had messy dark hair falling on his eyes which were slightly red and wet. He was sniffing in a soft manner like he was scared of disturbing the icy peacefulness of the train. His lips looked like they were on the verge of talking, constantly trembling like they  couldn't get what they wanted to say, out. His hands were restless on his ripped jeans, which I later realized were bleeding from the knuckles. For a second I thought he was hyperventilating, but as the train started to move again  for he was the only passenger to get onboard,  I listened to him take his breathing under control. 

 

I watched him for a while, don’t know how long, and as time passed his hands became  less restless and his constant eye movements stopped to be fixated on the floor. He seemed like he was giving in to whatever it was that had made him get a night train in this weather, by himself, apparently not by plan. I wasn't expecting it when he slightly raised his head and our eyes locked momentarily. His eyes were broken, alone, but most of all, afraid. 

 

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he whispered in such a gentle voice, like a whisper, like he was afraid. I guessed he was referring to sitting next to me and going through a small panic attack.

 

I shook my head, meaning it wasn’t a big deal. He turned his gaze to the floor of the poorly lighted train again, and I went back to staring out of the window. But my mind still kept hovering around the guy sitting next to me. Everyone had a silent stillness, a silent sadness to them yet he had this childish sadness to his eyes, to his movements. Like it was the first time he had lost his mother at the supermarket. Like he had accidentally gotten on train, like he didn't belong here with that innocence reflecting in his eyes. Like he was in a bad dream and was waiting to be woken up from it.

 

“If it’s not prying too much…” I murmured as I leaned in a bit. “Are you okay?”

 

He raised his head again for our eyes to meet, he seemed genuinely surprised at my question: lips slightly parted, eyes opened wide with his eyebrows raised over them. “Oh…” He said, as his mimic turned into a more relaxed one. “I… I don’t think I know the answer for that.”

 

“May I ask,” I continued. “why you are on this train?”

 

His gaze was back on his knees, like he would be at loss of words once our eyes met for a third time. “Actually, I really don’t know.”  He smiled a little, an exhausted one . “I don’t know a lot of things, don’t I?”

 

“That’s okay.” I said. “That’s okay.” Now, I was the one who was at loss of words. I could see him needing a hand to pull him out of whatever he was drowning in but I didn’t know how to control my limbs. And another small conversation ended with both of us reverting our eyes back to where they were directed at from the beginning.

 

He seemed so small in the silence, under the dim lights; like they could crush him in an instant. He looked fragile with his hands laying restlessly on his legs, his eyes looking towards the floor without blinking filled with utter anxiety. 

 

“You have sadness in your eyes.” I finally managed to say. 

 

When he replied with, “I just lost my mother,” I definitely wasn't ready for it. 

 

“I-I’m sorry for your loss.” 

 

“I lied. I know why I am on this train. It’s because of that.” He looked into my eyes again with that broken smile on his lips. “It’s because she’s not here anymore and without her, I belong anywhere as much as I belong in this train.” He paused for a second. “It’s only cold here without her . It’s only dark. And it’s going to keep being dark even when the sun rises, keep being cold even when the summer arrives. Because flower petals won’t rain over us without her and the dawn won’t color the sky with its morning colors. Without her, the world will be soaked in white and black and keep fading.” 

 

“How did she die?” I whispered, afraid taking it a pitch higher would break him. 

 

“She was sick.”

 

And then Jongin told me all of his story. 

 

Kim Jongin, aged 17. Jongin was born into the arms of a young woman who promised to love him more than anything, on a cold January morning. Mrs. Kim was 25 then, with her husband, Mr. Kim, a wealthy businessman, approaching his 30. Kim Jongin was one of those who were born lucky. His family was rich and Jongin was raised with everything he ever wanted in his reach. They lived in a gigantic mansion which baby Jongin wouldn't even get close to exploring all of it if the crawled around for his first two years in this world. According to his parents, he was loved by everyone. He was the kind of baby you’d see smiling any second like he didn't have one worry in this world. Playing all day with her mother and with the maids and then with his father when he came home from work, life was an actual heaven for baby Jongin. 

But it all came down to money after all, even baby Jongin’s life depended on it. When his father’s company went bankrupt, you couldn't call him lucky anymore. Jongin watched as their furniture disappeared from the house, and then the maids, toys, clothes… And his father.

Jongin was five when his father killed himself. 

Everyone had different theories for it, some suggested that he couldn't handle all of his life’s work going down the drain. He didn't want to turn into a man, a husband, a father who couldn't support his family. He didn't want to step out of his dream of massive houses and golden chandeliers.

When Jongin had to leave his childhood house which was nothing more than a crime scene now, holding the hand of his mother, the only thing he had in the entire world now, he couldn't understand what was going on. He couldn't understand why his mom didn't let him play with his toys, didn't understand why he wasn't wearing his night blue, silk shirt which he always wore for outside visits. He couldn't understand why Minhee, his favorite maid, wasn't accompanying them. He couldn't understand why his mom got so silent whenever he asked where his dad was and why he wasn't coming with them. 

When he stepped into his aunt’s house, he pulled his mom’s skirt, asking why they were there since it wasn't the time for the monthly visit. Yet his mother didn't seem like she had heard him, even if she had, she didn’t reply. Her eyes that were crammed with apparent stress and discomfort were followed by a gulp flowing down her neck. Jongin could feel his mother’s fingers getting colder as if the blood was being sucked out of them. 

He wanted to ask what was wrong but thinking he still wouldn't be able to get an answer, Jongin’s eyes looked for his cousin, a little freckled boy around his age whom he played with whenever he came to visit, Minhyuk. His eyes caught the glimmer of brown hair and small hands behind the hallway wall, two curious eyes directed right at him. Jongin was five, he didn't care much why Minhyuk was hiding behind a wall, why his eyes were dripping with distress. He let his tiny feet carry him towards his cousin a smile on his lips; until the shadow of a big figure was cast on him. Jongin raised his head as his smile got withered away, and his gaze locked into two dark orbs: his uncle. 

A gentle man his uncle was, always coming and joining Jongin and Minhyuk’s games, letting them ride their fire trucks over him and helping them build pillow fortresses. But something seemed off to Jongin now, his uncle never had that weird look in his eyes and his lips which were always occupied with a smile were empty now. He looked like a complete stranger to Jongin for a second before his brain was able to register the familiar features, yet still Jongin had an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. Before Jongin could say or do anything, the man who resembled his uncle grabbed his arm in a rather violent way, dragging Jongin away from Minhyuk until a significant distance separated the two. Deciding Jongin was far away from his son enough, he crouched down to meet his confused eyes.

 

“You’re not welcomed in this house anymore, Jongin-ah.” 

 

His voice was gentle yet Jongin knew it wasn't the kind of gentle his aunt’s freshly baked cookies and milk were, not the kind of gentle Minhyuk’s laughter was when they watched cartoons in the middle of the night without his parents knowing, not the kind of gentle the summer breeze was when Minhyuk’s family took the two out for a picnic when the weather was nice. Though now Jongin doubted the gentleness of those too. 

Little Jongin’s brain couldn't really interpret those words quickly, to any meaning that made sense to him. He would ask why, he would think he was joking and laugh; but those were the actions of the past Jongin. Jongin who wasn't torn between the two separate meanings of gentle he had discovered in his uncle’s voice. The discomfort in his stomach making him restless, Jongin stepped back to the side of his mom, grabbing onto her skirt. He wanted to ask her why his uncle was acting funny, why they weren't stepping in from the doorway; wanted to tell her he wanted to leave but his desired were silenced by his aunt’s voice. 

 

“Seolhyun-ah,” He had never heard his aunt pronounce his mom’s name in that way: mocking, degrading. It was always “Seolhyun-ah,” with a tender and sweet tone, a “Seolhyun-ah,” with a smile attached to it, a “Seolhyun-ah” followed with “you know the situation we are in”, followed with a “it’s only a few hundred I’m asking for”, followed with a “you’re the best little sis.” 

But now it was “Seolhyun-ah,” lips curving downwards with the piled up disgust at the corners of them, “stop feeling so sorry for yourself.” 

 

Jongin reverted his gaze to his aunt, some kind of a fear growing inside of him with the tension slowly overflowing in the room. Jongin looked at his mother to see what she would say yet the view that welcomed him was her mom’s gaze directed at her feet, head humbly bowed, lips shaking like she was about to cry. That was the first time Jongin felt something break inside of him. 

 

“What’re you gonna do now that your husband is gone, Seolhyun-ah?” Jongin decided he hated that smirk and laughter that came with his aunt’s words. “You’re so pathetic. I’d rather die than someone learning we are related.” Jongin hadn't been able to really understand what she was talking about because, didn't his aunt love talking about his mother? She had done that way whenever her friends came over, she would always come up with ways to talk about her sister over a cup of tea. Though now that Jongin realized, she always used her surname, and never her name. Maybe for her sister, Jongin’s mom was too different people— Seolhyun, and Mrs. Kim. 

It appeared right now that her mother was only Seolhyun to her sister, and talking by the way that name left her lips, she didn't like it very much. 

 

His mother remained silent. 

 

“Seolhyun, the pride of our family, marrying to a rich businessman at a young age and suddenly you were everyone’s favourite. Just because you were able to make money rain down on mom’s hospital debts, suddenly you were a hero. Just because you got dad a new car as a birthday present, suddenly you are his one and only girl. What now then, Seolhyun-ah? Where’s your money, your wallet popping out of your pocket, where’s your bank account?” A smirk that didn't resemble any kind of smile Jongin was familiar with spread on his aunt’s lips. “You are nothing now. Nothing without that bastard shitting money every second he breathed.”

 

Jongin realized his mother was crying, tears forming under her amber eyes and slowly streaming down her round face. Jongin couldn't understand the situation at all but if there was one thing that was certain in little Jongin’s heart, it was that he never wanted to see his mother cry. As Jongin wrapped his arms around his mother’s legs, he realized she was trembling like there was an earthquake, demolishing her only. 

 

“Unnie,” she said in a shaking voice, on the edge of breaking. “Not in front of Jongin. Don’t.” 

 

“You  _ don’t _ tell me what to do anymore, Seolhyun-ah. I don’t know what you think you are but without that stack of money you come into my house with, your face isn't a part of my family tree.”

 

“Unnie, at least take Jongin in. I don’t want anything for myself, but he is only a kid—”

 

“That isn't my problem.”

 

“Think of Minhyuk, would you want Minhyuk to be in this kind of a —”

 

“Don’t bring Minhyuk into this.”

 

“Then don’t bring Jongin into this!” Jongin jumped with his mother’s sudden yell. He snapped his head upwards to see that now, there were dead coals of a flame in her mother’s eyes. But at least they still had small spots, burning crimson red. 

 

Jongin heard his aunt laugh in a crazy manner like she felt the control slipping out of her hands for a while, yet as her crazily drunk eyes fixated on his mother again, her voice had got back to its firm state. “You watch your tongue Seolhyun-ah.”

 

Jongin’s mother took a deep breath and directed her eyes red and wet with tears right at her sister. “Take him in.”

 

“He’s not my child.”

 

“He’s your nephew.”

 

“He is not my concern.”

 

Jongin didn't know how it went down but suddenly his mom wasn't in his grip anymore, moving towards his aunt in a way that he had never seen his mom act like. Like a predator going for its prey.

 

Jongin heard muffled voices, screams and angry screeches, pulling, pushing, falling, standing. He pushed his palms against his eye and counted to ten like his mom had told him to do when he was scared. 

 

_ 1  _

_ 2  _

_ 3 _

_ 4 _

_ 5 _

_ 6 _

_ 7 _

_ 8 _

_ 9 _

_ 10 _

 

When Jongin opened his eyes again the first thing he saw was his aunt, hair all messed up and eyes flaming with pure fury, his mother’s hair strands sticking out of the gaps between her fingers, grabbing onto her hair like an animal as his mother was bent in an awkward position, obviously in pain but in complete silence. 

 

“You’re so pitiful that it makes me sick,” he heard his aunt hiss, like spitting out poison. His mom didn't reply. Jongin watched as his aunt threw her mother to the floor and as his mother didn't even move one bit in resistance. “Just because I feel sorry for Jongin I’m giving you the keys to the old warehouse. Live there until you die due to cold I guess. You can come pick up our left over food once a week, I don’t want to see your face more than that. And if I ever see you, and I mean this,” she bent over so that her venomous eyes would lock onto his mother’s, “if I ever see you bothering, or even talking to Minhyuk, or my husband, or  _ me, _ you’ll be completely alone in this, little sister.” 

 

His aunt threw some keys at his mom who was still lying on the floor. “Now get out of my house, Seolhyun-ah.” 


	3. The Case of Kim Jongin Pt.2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Miscarriage, implication of suicidal thoughts, sexual and verbal abuse 
> 
> Chapter Song(s):  
> End of a day - Jonghyun  
> Ballad for Last Sunday - Mot

When Jongin woke up to a candle standing over a miserable joke of a cake drenched in cheap chocolate sauce, it had been around two years since everything.

 

“Happy birthday Nini!” 

 

Jongin had jumped out from bed to wrap his arms around his mother’s neck. His mother who was sleeping so less that the bags forming underneath them were starting to get bigger than her eyes. His mother who had to be both a mother and a father to Jongin that as if she was aging the amount two people would, her body embroidered with wrinkles. His mother who had changed so much that someone who had known her in her expensive yet humble clothing and gentle smile, her young eyes and elegant gestures, wouldn't be able to recognize her now. But Jongin did. He would know that sparkle in his mother’s eyes anywhere, the little pinches of stardust that wouldn't fade away no matter how many layers she was crushed under. Jongin would always recognize his mom, anywhere, anytime. 

 

“Thanks mommy.” Jongin said as he pressed his lips to his mom’s sunken cheek. Jongin was seven now, still not an age old enough so that he could comprehend that cake was the reason his mom had to come home late for an entire month, the reason his mom seemed to eat less at dinners while Jongin kept his usual diet. How could Jongin, with his height still not passing his mom’s waist, understand that a simple five bites would be that expensive? 

 

They were living in the basement of a run-down apartment located in the city’s slums now. It smelt damp, smelt like the dumpsters when the wind blew from the wrong way, smelt like rusty pipes. But his mother’s smell outweighed all of it for Jongin. They slept in the bed that was usually wet from the leaking ceiling, they had more quilts than they had clothes for let alone the basement, the apartment itself didn't have anything close to a heater. But they had each other and on winter nights no matter how much Jongin shivered, his mother’s goodnight stories were always warm enough for him, and for his mother, Jongin’s smile as he drifted off to sleep was also. 

 

His mom watched Jongin as he ate the birthday cake, giving him the leftover milk from the dinner they had the day before, the last few drops in the bottom of the carton. Probably the last drops of milk that would wet Jongin’s throat for a long time. His mom worked at a  nursing home as a janitor. Even though she had to work long hours, sometimes beginning for the night shift to her coworkers because the fridge was completely empty back at home, even though you couldn't even say she earned enough for the two of them to properly survive, the elderly treated her good. A gentle woman, his mother was, the softest and kindest souıl Jongin had ever known in this world, in his life, the most benign heart that had shielded Jongin from the cold and harsh world all these years. Of course they’d like her. They sometimes gave her some extra money, some food like cookies or any kind of sweet whenever she mentioned Jongin, old clothes of their children for her, and old clothes of their grandchildren for Jongin. Soon enough their wardrobes had turned into a retail shop, Hawaiian shirts next to suits. Jongin was too young to realize how dark everything was, how much debt they were drenched in and how sad his mother was. Jongin was too young. _Jongin was too young._

 

“I was too young,” Jongin said as his lips shook on the verge of bursting into tears. “What was I supposed to do?” Jongin looked at me with the most shattered look I have ever seen in his eyes. “What was I supposed to do? 

 

I opened my mouth and closed it again for several times like words would come to me, just like that. They didn’t. They didn’t as I stared right back at Jongin, his recently dried eyes starting to get wet again and felt a lump in my throat choking me. He looked so broken, he looked so small right in front of me. Like he had gone back to his seven-year-old self with the ghost of his father following him and his mother, seeing his mother slowly drift into the depths of darkness; yet now, he was aware of all that was happening. 

 

“You were just a child,” I said. The only thing I could say. The only thing I could think of.  _ He was just a child.  _

 

Jongin hid his face behind his hands but I could hear his breath hitching, his shoulders shaking with each tear. I was sitting right next to him but we were so distant, he was trapped in a cage so tight that it was squeezing his hard until it exploded. The ghost of his mother was floating right above him, and as if his tears could form her a tangible frame, he kept shaking underneath her memory. We weren’t breathing in the same air, his lungs were filled with the filthy air of an almost demolished apartment basement, the noose around his neck squeezing that air out of him. He had a face with sunken cheeks and deep wrinkles like cuts of a cleaver, engraved right into his skin and the blood of that wound still flowed. 

 

And as I listened to his words, I felt like the train lamps positioned themselves to shine upon the young man and turn him into one of the silent sad souls of the night train.

 

“You know, everything was bearable up until some point,” Jongin whispered, through the gap between his hitching breath and shivering voice. “I wasn't aware of anything anyway, so it was all fine for me either way. But for my mom…” 

 

Having a good heart in a world like this wasn't easy, wasn't something most people would prefer. For the softer your heart was, the easier it was to completely shatter it. Jongin’s mother’s heart was a sack, patched hundreds of times over and over again, each time people stepped on it, tore it, tried their best to make it fade. Yet each time, Jongin’s mother had repaired her heart with the softest fabrics possible. It was worn out, its color was unrecognizable, but it was soft still. It kept its softness when her coworkers were sick of the elders constantly rewarding her with small gifts; snacks, clothes. Not one person who worked there would be considered wealthy and anything given out by those old people would be a nice bounty to decorate their house with. None of them knew the dampness of the walls of their house, none of them knew the ribs sticking out of Jongin’s chest, none of them knew the stack of flashlights they had at home due to the constantly cut electricity. 

 

Jealousy is a dangerous thing. 

 

The others wanted what Jongin’s mother had, even though she had nothing. They wanted those gifts and they wanted that love from the elders, the love that resulted in extra clothes or food.

 

It was only bothering her, sometimes pushing her around or making her trip and fall at first. His mother came home limping sometimes, one or two small bruises decorating her face. But Kim Seolhyun had one of the biggest scars a person could receive carved in her heart, these wouldn't even faze her. Especially with her son’s well-being on the line. 

 

His mother would do anything for him, Jongin knew that, and if all the bullying kept going in the form of secretly pushing her in the corridors, talking behind her back to the elders; his mother wouldn't care one bit. She didn't expect anyone to be on her side. It didn't matter if the gifts she received from the elders lessened and soon, became nonexistent, it didn't matter if the boss had called her for a private meeting twice that week. It didn't matter, as long as she had Jongin. But the thing was, it didn't keep going in the same way. 

 

The stories that her coworkers made up got up to such a point that the elders wouldn't even talk to her anymore like she was trash, a filthy human being that no one would even dare talk to. Even though Kim Seolhyun didn't care, she was forced to, when the boss called her for a final meeting that turned out to be the last one. 

 

“You are not welcomed here anymore, Miss Seolhyun.” 

 

Little Jongin couldn't comprehend why suddenly no one would welcome them. It seemed to him that all the door were constantly being shut to their faces, even the doors of his own house — if you could call it a house — didn't seem welcoming to him. Like he didn't belong anywhere in this world, not with his blood relatives, not his own house, not his father’s side— Jongin was a castaway. Everything he owned had choked along with his father and now he was an emptied shell, the name Kim Jongin felt so meaningless to him. 

 

But even then, it felt like he belonged with his mother. If the names really did matter, he didn't care one bit about Kim Jongin, the heir of the Kim Mechanics, son of a wealthy businessman, Kim Jongin of the silk sheets and maid-prepared food — he wanted to be Jongin. He wanted to be Nini. He wanted the name that his mother’s lips pronounced, with a voice dripping with honey. He wanted to be “Jongin, come here it’s dinner time”, he wanted to be “Kim Jongin how many times do I have to tell you to get dressed?” he wanted to be “Mommy loves you Nini”. 

 

His mother had to go around unemployed for a while, the feeling of guilt eating her each day, seeing her little Jongin hungry, watching her little Jongin sleepless, watching her Jongin never leaving her side.

 

They had to go here and there, moving from one mansion’s tiny maid room to another basement floor. Jongin woke up to his mother leaving early in the morning, Jongin woke up to the shouts of the lady of the house telling his mother how useless she was, Jongin woke up to his mother sleeping in the arms of a stranger man, Jongin woke up to his mother crying. Sometimes Jongin wished he didn't wake up at all. 

Jongin was twelve when his mother finally let him work. He searched for old clothes or anything that could be sold again in any dumpster he could find and sold them to the rag-and-bone man. He came home each day smelling like rotten fruits, outdated dairy products, or any kind of nasty smell. They couldn't afford taking showers every day so sometimes he had to spend an entire week with that smell stuck on him. Even though he made a little amount of money sometimes that amount rewarded them with a bottle of orange juice, a scarf for the harsh winters, or some new socks. 

 

Jongin had already forgotten what good cheese tasted like, how a comfortable bed with silk sheets felt like, what having tens of maids around him to play with him all throughout the day was like. It was like his taste buds had only known cheap and outdated milk’s stinging sensation, his body was used to rubbing against the cold and wet mattress by now, like he had only had his mother for the entirety of his life. A mother he barely saw at this point as she only came home during the hours Jongin was sleeping and sometimes she didn't come home at all. 

 

It was six months after Jongin started collecting all kinds of trash from dumpsters and roaming the streets of the city with bags weighing a few pounds, full of smelly garbage which made everyone stay away from him the moment he got caught in their peripheral vision. Though he didn't know if they avoided him because of the smell of the bags or his smell, or his overall look in general, dressed in all kinds of ragged and old clothing; the clothes the elderly had given them had stopped fitting him long ago. He dragged the bags with him until the first rag-and-bone man he saw, negotiating until the two settled on a good price which Jongin was convinced he’d be able to buy a bite on the way home with. 

 

Jongin didn't complain much about his way of living, not that he had the chance to. He had been living in poverty, watching his mother fade away, drifting between jobs, had nothing but his mother, since he was five. He didn't have many memories concerning his life drenched in gold and silver yet his memory about the sour taste of rusty steel and the disturbing feel of damp wallpapers was pretty vivid. He didn't know how to be that rich kid anymore, he had too much distance between him and the king size beds with chandeliers swinging above them and the embroidered wallpapers and the maid uniforms. Jongin had no choice but to get used to the dark anyway. 

 

Jongin was fifteen when his mother came home with a man whom Jongin had never seen before — which had become a usual thing at that point — yet this time Jongin didn't receive a hidden signal to leave the room immediately but rather, his mom’s eyes said she had some news for him. 

 

Jongin was sixteen when his mother remarried. 

 

He wasn't a man with much money but he could afford a pretty simple living for the three of them which felt like heaven after ten years of living in the depths of hell. Whatever they had wasn't based on love, really; a rather old man he was, probably in need of a young body, badly enough to take both her and her child in. Jongin didn't understand his mother anymore — she looked so tired, so desperate yet another second she just so joyful and happy. Jongin didn't know which was the mask anymore— maybe neither of them were. Unlike Jongin, his mother had spent more of her life on blood red silk couches — the transition must’ve been harder for her. She always had her son who loved her more than anything in the world but suddenly crash-landing into a basement floor with damp walls from the high ceilings of a mansion couldn't have been easy for her. She wanted to keep going for Jongin, maybe that was the only reason she even tried. Jongin often thought, if he weren't there what would've happened. If his mother would be pushed and kicked around only for a single meal, if his mother would invite men into her bed, if his mother would be alive at this point. Jongin didn't know if he should be grateful and happy for how much his mother was willing to take on for his sake or feel an unbearable guilt because the only reason his mother had turned into a walking yet not living soul, was probably him. 

 

Jongin though he could get used to the noise of the creaking bed yet after a while he knew he wouldn't be able to get used to the surpassed cries of his mother. Jongin knew his mother was doing all of it only for him, so that he could have a roof on top of his head, so that he could eat three meals a day, so that he wouldn't get sick the moment the degrees dropped. But he didn't care, if this was what his well-being took, he didn't want it. He'd rather go back to the streets. 

 

One night just as the man had his hand swinging in the air, ready to land on the target which was his mother’s face, Jongin decided to act. He was fifteen now and even though he was weakened from malnutrition and such, he believed himself to be stronger than an older man. He didn't really think much, just stepped between them to make the man stop or at least receive the blow himself.

 

“Move away kid,” hissed the man. It seemed like everyone was hissing in the world to Jongin, everyone but his mom. Like they were the only humans left on the earth and were surrounded by cobras ready to attack them any second.

 

“You’re not hitting my mom again.”

 

“You don't make the rules here.”

 

“Stay away from her.”

 

“Nini please—”

 

“You keep your mouth shut woman,” said the man as he approached Jongin, his finger pressing against his chest. “Now look kiddo, if there is one reason you two aren't dead, that is  _ me _ . It’s my roof shielding you from the cold, it’s my money paying for the food you gobble up. Now stop being a brat and if you don’t want to go back to the worthless filth you were, obey what I say.”

 

“Streets are better than this place.”

 

“Who do you think you are?”

 

“Who do you think  _ you _ are?” Jongin knew he was getting out of control and was regretting every syllable as they left his mouth yet he felt the tears rushing to his eyes as an uncontrollable anger scorched his insides — he couldn't take it anymore. Being pushed around and humiliated and degraded by everyone, by every look and by every sound, some piece of shit thinking he could do anything he'd want to them just because he had a few more bucks in his pocket, Jongin was fed up. Jongin was exhausted. 

 

“Well let me tell you, I am your owner. Actually, I don’t give a shit about you— I am your mother’s owner. See this body?” His hand pointed the way of Jongin’s mom. “It’s mine. Every inch of it. I couldn't care less if you like it or not. Just get your shit together because if you ever disrespect me again you’re over and out.” 

 

Jongin didn't want this, he didn't want to feel so powerless again. He stepped towards the man who had already turned his back and leading his mother to the bedroom, raising his fist. Yet he was wrong to trust his age as the man swiftly turned back to punch Jongin in the face, hard enough to make him pass out. He heard faint whispers which seemed far away, some  _ What the hell did you do to him?  _ some  _ You don’t open your mouth woman,  _ some  _ If you don't wanna end up like your kid lead yourself to the bed,  _ some  _ You’re disgusting,  _ some  _ Jongin  _ some  _ Nini  _ and some darkness. 

 

When Jongin woke up the other day, he was still lying on the old parquet floor, every inch of his body aching, clotted blood on his face. He got up. Jongin sometimes wished that punch had killed him. 

 

The following days had a lot stuffed in them. Vomit coming out from his mother’s mouth and staggering and dizziness and a pharmacy and a pregnancy test with a positive outcome and a fight of punches and kicks and spits, of “What the hell are we gonna do”, of  “That is not my problem”. 

 

Of “You two aren't welcomed here anymore.” 

 

Like stray animals, they were cast out to the street again and for the first time in his life, the filthy and polluted smell of the slums’ air felt liberating to Jongin. It didn't seem to be that way for his mother as she was hyperventilating, hands pressed against her belly, empty eyes directed right at the floor. Jongin looked for the hint of his sibling in his mother. That was the God knows which time a piece of Jongin had shattered. 

 

Without any money for abortion and with the knowledge what underground abortion centers really do, you don't have much to do with an unwanted baby in your belly. 

 

“Maybe I’ll keep him Nini,” his mother said with her arms wrapped around her belly, eyes dreamily looking into the cloudy sky, voice so ethereal it was drifting up to the heavens. 

 

“Mom what are you talking about?” 

 

“Wouldn’t you want a sister? Or a brother?” 

 

Jongin had walked up to her, held her hands in terror. “Mom, you can’t bring a child into this world. Not into this part anyway. Not into this life.” 

 

“Do you want me to kill it?” she said with a voice brimming with pure dread. “Your sibling?”

 

“It was dead the moment its seed was in you mom! How will he live, say, if you give birth? How? Live on what? Live  _ in _ what? How are we supposed to take care of another human being when we can barely take care of ourselves?” 

 

“Why do you want another member of this family to die?”

 

“All of the members of this family already died, mom!” Jongin snapped, tears dripping to the floor stained with rainwater. His eyes caught a glimpse of his reflection in a broken mirror, a little bit further away. “Look at me. Look at  _ you.  _ Is this living? If so, how?”

 

His mother looked at him like she was about to cry, everything they had gone through for the past eleven years was reflecting on her eyes. Jongin slowly watched everything flowing from his father’s body swinging from the end of a rope to another tiny member of the Kim family forming in his mother’s belly.  He felt the tears cramming in his eyes. 

 

“Maybe I’ll keep him, Nini.” His mother said with the same dreamy voice as Jongin let go of her weak wrists and she wrapped them around her belly again. Jongin looked at her mother and saw the woman crushing under the weight of everything for the first time up until then. Maybe she had been crushed bit by bit, with each and every fall -- and now the damage that had been done already was coming into light. 

 

Jongin watched as his mom slowly drifted into madness, talking to her new baby all day long on some days. Jongin had no idea what to do except for going around doing any kind of job he could find to keep his mother alive one more day. Yet despite all of his efforts, his mother seemed to die more and more as days passed and Jongin was starting to doubt if she had been alive all this time. Maybe the pieces that she kept together just for Jongin was starting to fall apart now for she didn’t have the strength anymore. 

 

_ Nini,  _ she said in her sleep while Jongin was still wide awake,  _ Nini please don’t die, don’t leave me alone like your dad did. Good boy. Good Nini. Mommy loves you.  _

 

Jongin didn’t know anymore if she was addressing the ghost of another child or Jongin himself. 

 

She started calling the baby Jongin and Nini first, then came the vomiting and the back cramps and blood. Lots of blood. His mother was wandering around such extreme levels concerning both mental and physical things that Jongin was starting to be unsure if she even felt the pain as she always had that weird smile on his lips as blood dripped from her mouth. 

 

Jongin kept trying to drag her to an underground doctor of any kind yet she always stood still, saying that Nini needed her and she couldn’t leave Nini alone. 

 

“Yes, mom,  _ yes  _ Nini needs you!” Jongin cried. “Look into my eyes, mama, look. I’m Jongin. I’m Nini. I need you mom.” 

 

Her eyes preserved an empty look long enough that Jongin thought maybe there was some hope things were coming back to her, maybe she was processing things, maybe she would go back to normal. 

 

“Nini is waiting for me,” was what she said. Jongin’s heart shattered completely on that day. 

 

After one or two weeks of vomiting and bleeding and unbearable headaches followed by one-sided conversations with her Nini; her mother wasn’t able to stand up properly. Jongin knew he wouldn’t be able to get his mom examined with her consent so making up some lie that walking and wandering around was good for the baby, good for her Nini, he managed to get her into the city and eventually some underground doctor whom he was acquaintanced with. After a very brief examination as if the case was obvious enough, the man dressed in all white turned to Jongin with a constant poker face plastered on him.

 

“It’s a miscarriage,” he said. “She has to have the baby removed. It has stayed there long enough. If we leave it there any more, the damage will be beyond repair.”

 

Jongin gulped, running his fingers through his mirror. “Mom,” he started. “you gotta say goodbye to Nini.” 

 

“What? No.”

 

“Mom it’s killing you,” Jongin said, his eyes wet with desperation. He didn’t know what to do anymore, he didn’t know how to babysit his mom. Jongin was so exhausted. 

 

“I’m not leaving my Nini.”

 

“Your Nini will be the end of you!” Jongin shouted, his voice barely escaping being smothered by his sobs. 

 

Jongin remembered how his mother looked at him with eyes so dreadful that Jongin hated his guts, hated himself for saying that, for getting tired this easily, for snapping this easily, for snapping at the woman who had done anything for him for the past 16 years, for he hadn’t even tried doing anything for her. His mother’s brown eyes slowly filled up with tears which soon started flowing through her round cheeks towards her chin, and that was all it took for Jongin to break completely.

  
He found himself on the floor as if someone had snatched the circuits connecting his brain and knees. His face hidden behind his long and slender, dirty fingers-- tears raining down. He could hear his mom’s sobbing getting louder and louder, catching up with his. Jongin felt like this was the most honest moment they had in the past 11 years. Just how broken they were. 

 

When Jongin woke up in the middle of the night, he found his mother dead. Nothing beating in her stuck out ribcage, her wrists silent, a thin stream of vomit dripping from his mouth, dead and soulless eyes looking into the void. Her hands wrapped around her belly. 

 

Jongin didn’t even think it was weird or foreign for a moment, his mother’s eyes had been fading for a long time now. Jongin couldn’t breathe but he wasn’t really surprised, maybe they had been drifting towards this the second his father got that noose around his neck. Jongin just stood in front of his mother’s lifeless body for some time, his hands were shaking and there were tears in his eyes but Jongin couldn’t feel any of them. He was numb. He probably had used up all his desperation credit.

 

Jongin didn’t know what to do, he felt like everything in his brain was slowly leaking out, leaving him completely on his own in this gigantic, cruel and cold world. Jongin didn’t know what to do, what to feel, what to say. Where to go. Who to go. 

 

He just ran, like he had wanted to all these years yet couldn’t find the courage to. He ran and ran and ran. In the night cold, he kept running, every other soul asleep in the world but a few working street lamps, he ran. He ran into the train station, jumped over the turnstile and sat on one of the benches, looking into the void and the billboards around. 

Jongin didn’t tell me this part but as he told me, the way his eyes darkened and his voice got lower to a point it was barely audible, I think he wasn’t there to take the train really. He felt like he belonged more on the train tracks than the train seats. 

 

Then a train came to his sight. He got on because why not. What else was he going to do anyway. And now, he was here. Lost his mother, lost his father, lost his sibling, lost himself; sitting next to a stranger. 

 

“Where do I go now?” he whispered, voice on the verge of breaking into tears. “Do I even go anywhere?” He paused and looked straight into my eyes. “Do I really have the reason?”

 

I stared at him, mouth open. I didn’t know what to say. What would someone even say in a situation like this? I took my time to look back in his eyes, the tears of a child still swirling around somewhere in them, so many broken pieces that it was up to your imagination to picture what was the real thing was before it had been shattered into pieces. Just something to stitch them all back, something to glue them all to each other again. Grown-up Jongin but with the baby Jongin’s eyes.

 

It broke me to hear him talk with so much pain in his words and still, he was only one person in this entire world and even though his world no longer existed, everything else would keep living. And summer would come for everyone else, the sun would rise and they would see the pink of the flower petals and watch the sunrise. I wondered how many worlds were left in ruins while all of us slept soundly. 

 

“I shouldn’t have left her alone,” he said, tears starting to drip. 

 

“That would change nothing, Jongin.”

 

“I shouldn’t have left her. She needed me.”

 

“Jongin, she was dead.”

 

“Because of me!” Jongin shouted, waking up a couple of the sleepers. His eyes were red now. 

 

I reached and took Jongin’s hand into mine, locked our gazes

. 

“You know that your mom won’t care if you go back there Jongin, you know she won’t. She knows you loved her, she knows you still  _ love  _ her. Going back there isn't about doing something for her anymore. It’s about doing something for yourself. You can’t run away Jongin, not anymore. Your mom is not here. You have to be there for yourself. But your mom was strong, she raised you to be strong, you  _ are _ strong, Jongin. You just need to courage to let yourself realize it.” 

 

Jongin stared at me for a while, his lips shaking like they wanted to say something. Yet they instead broke into tears and Jongin buried his head in my chest and I wrapped my arms around him.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” I whispered to him as he shivered in my arms. “It’s gonna be okay.”

 

And maybe it wouldn’t but in this ephemeral world, we didn’t have much except for hope. But I looked at Jongin and I could picture a smile spreading on his lips again. I looked at him and could picture him all warm again. I looked at him.

“Jongin?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“It’s gonna be okay.” 


End file.
